by Nicole Smith
"Oh no, I hadn't thought...."
"Okay, how about...twenty-five thousand?"
"Dollars?" she squeaked.
"Yes."
"No!"
"Too little?"
"Way too much."
"Okay how about twenty thousand."
"Sam!"
They haggled back and forth for a half hour while drinking their coffee, laughing at each other and generally having a great time. By the end of it, she agreed to take eight thousand dollars for the painting simply because he refused to go any lower.
"This is great. Now I can contribute more to the loft renovation."
Sam frowned. "Anna, won't you use it to buy yourself anything?"
"Like what?"
"Hmm. I'm not sure how to say this without sounding rude. Have you thought about buying some new clothes? Some makeup? Jewelry? Any of that?"
She felt hurt. All he'd said about liking who she was--had that been a lie?
"Whoa, whoa, Anna, hold on--I can tell from your face that I've said this wrong. I didn't mean it as a criticism. I just meant that you should do some things for yourself, not only your loft. It's about taking care of yourself, that's all. I'll love you no matter what, but--"
"You'll what?" Anna said, voice very quiet.
"Man, did I just say that out loud?"
She nodded, eyes opened wide staring at him.
"I--hmm, I don't seem to know what to say." Sam stood up from where he'd been sitting next to her and began pacing. Several minutes went by in total silence. Finally he said, "I guess I've known for a while that I was falling in love with you."
"But--but--" she spluttered.
"I know it seems like it's too fast to you. I get that. The thing is I don't think I've ever felt this way before for anyone--not even my first love in high school. Somehow between the cookies and the painting and being around you, it crept up on me."
"Wait!" Anna finally got the word out. "You can't be in love with me! That's impossible, I mean, you're you and I'm me and you're all gorgeous and smart and funny and I'm just a plain Jane who dabbles in art and--"
Sam strode across the room to her and raised her up off the couch. Placing his hands on her shoulders he gave her a tiny shake. "Stop that! First of all you aren't plain at all, especially not to me, but not to anyone. And if I ever hear you say you 'dabble' in art...honestly Anna, you are a highly talented, skilled artist. Don't put yourself down like this."
Slowly she said, "I just never thought...I never really imagined my life could be more. That someone would say those words to me. It will take some time...for all of it to sink in."
"Well, don't take too long to let it sink in, okay?" Sam smiled at her. Then he bent his head to hers and came closer--
"What are you doing?" Anna whispered.
"Kissing you."
The kiss was tender and exquisite and she melted into his arms. She felt that it lasted forever, but finally she pulled away. It was too much, too soon. Her mind and her heart were reeling.
"Sam...I need...I need some time. To think. I'm feeling completely overwhelmed right now. Can you give me that? Some time?"
His dark brown eyes stared into hers, searching, then he gave her a small smile. "You're not afraid, are you? I don't see that in your eyes."
"No, just swamped with emotion and too many thoughts. Too much has happened in one day. Let me get my balance back."
"All right." He hugged her to him for a moment then released her. "I'll come back for the painting at another time. With a check. Take it easy, love." Then he walked to the door and was gone.
Anna sat staring at the painting for a full minute before bursting into tears.
* * * *
Sam was halfway home before he realized that she'd never said anything at all about how she felt about him. His dazed smile gave way to a frown as his mind cleared and he replayed every moment, every word of their encounter. No, he was right, she'd said nothing.
What did it mean? What if she didn't feel the same way about him? Maybe she saw him only as a friend...if so, she might see the kiss and his discussion of his feelings as an uncomfortable and awkward episode. Damn. What if she only saw him as a patron of the arts? What if--?
He stopped this train of thought by whacking a hand on his forehead. By the time he got home he was thinking hard. He walked into his kitchen, opened the freezer and took out the bottle of vodka and a martini glass. After fixing the drink, he slouched down on the couch and really thought about how Anna saw herself.
That was the problem, he slowly realized. She didn't have enough belief in her own looks and personality and talent to believe he could actually love her. So how could she say she loved him? Bah, this is all too complicated. Bottom line here is I need to romance the lady, show her how I feel, make her believe my love for her is real. Great. Now to figure out how to do that.
* * * *
Anna moped around her loft all morning Sunday, the day after Sam had said he loved her. She'd run it through her head over and over and she couldn't believe what he said he felt was real. She just wasn't the kind of girl that attracted and was loved by a man like him. She tried painting and gave up after thirty minutes. It was a dismal mess of grays and muddy browns.
Finally she decided to do something positive. She wrapped up the painting Sam had chosen and took it to a friend of hers, Louis Caronelli. He was great at framing and she knew exactly the right type of frame for this painting. Louis was the only other person in town who'd seen any of her paintings, and then only a couple several years ago. She still went to his small shop periodically to see his latest work and types of framing, always imagining one day getting some of hers framed.
Louis was turning the closed sign to open when she appeared at his door. Motioning her through, he smiled at the large package she had with her.
"Ah, at last! You will let me frame one, yes?"
"Yes, Louis. This is for a client. The painting is already sold."
Louis looked shocked. "You? Are selling them? After all this time?"
"Yes," she said, lifting her head an inch. "I'm going to start selling them, maybe even in a gallery."
Louis had bent to unwind the twine and brown wrapping paper carefully. As he unveiled it, his mouth fell open.
"Louis, is something wrong?"
"Wrong? Wrong? Nothing could be wrong, it is perfection! Glorious! I know the exact frame for it."
"Now I had my own idea about--"
"Let me do what I know, Anna. Just wait."
With some trepidation, she watched him take it to the back of his shop. While she waited she looked at the pieces in the window, watercolors of the coast that to her mind were too washed out. Watercolor didn't have to be the palest of the pale. Her watercolors had some intensity to them. But then, these in the window were mainly for tourists to buy. Anna knew the artist, a friend of Holly's, actually, from high school. She knew the woman was perfectly content to churn out essentially the same three paintings for tourist dollars. Anna imagined doing that would drive herself nuts.
"Here it is," Louis said quietly.
Anna turned and saw the painting. The frame was not quite what she had pictured but was even better. It set off the light in the painting. Now it almost looked like it should cost eight thousand dollars.
"How much?"
"I hate to charge you--"
"How much, Lewis?"
"For you, fifty. To cover materials."
"Are you sure that's enough?"
Lewis gave her a wry smile. "I have ulterior motives. If you sell more, you'll bring them here to be framed? Yes?"
She laughed. "Yes." She paid him and they wrapped the painting up well.
Now to deliver it. She opened up her cell phone to call Sam and realized she didn't have his number. But she did know where his house was. Everyone knew where Wally's place stood. Carefully propping the painting in the back seat, Anna decided to go there. If he was gone, she'd try another time. She wanted him to have t
he painting. He needed it in his living room and...and...she also wanted to see him. That thought almost made her turn the car around, but she continued on, following the beach road out to his house.
When she got there, she gave a quick sigh of relief as she saw his car in the driveway. So far so good. She removed the painting from the car and walked up the sidewalk to the house. She knocked on the door and after a few seconds heard someone moving inside.
Sam opened the door and the look of surprise on his face almost had Anna laughing. She managed only to smile, but it was funny-looking. She held up the painting and pointed to him. "This belongs to you. I thought I'd deliver it in person, to see what it looks like on the wall...that is, if you don't mind."
"Mind? No, not at all. Come in, come in." He opened the door more widely and reached out for the painting.
Anna handed it to him as she tried not to stare. He was shirtless, wearing only some beat-up white shorts that really showed off his tan. The abs she'd noticed before were definitely pronounced without the shirt. She found herself wanting to reach out and run her fingertips across his chest. She shook herself and heard him talking.
"Hmm. It doesn't feel the same. It feels like it's been framed."
"I know you may have wanted to do that yourself, choosing a frame, I mean. But I know the guy who owns the framing shop in town who has wonderful taste. He chose the perfect frame."
Sam closed the door and they moved straight ahead, past the kitchen into the living room. He began to unwrap the painting.
"Oh, the view here is spectacular," Anna said as she stood by the window. He'd had the sliding doors partially open and a nice breeze was coming off the water. There was no need for air conditioning in this house.
"Anna." Sam called to her. She turned swiftly. Sam smiled at her. "The frame really is just right. Thanks for doing that."
She waved a hand. "Sure, no problem. Where did you want to hang it?"
"I think on this wall here so I can see it from the couch. What do you think about this height?"
"You know what? Let me hold it up so you can sit on the couch and we can figure out where it needs to be for you to see it best."
They moved it up and down the wall and finally agreed on placement and Sam hung it on the wall. Finally they both sat down on the couch and stared at the new wall feature.
"Perfect, Sam."
"Absolutely, Anna."
A companionable quiet filled the room, the sound of waves barely reaching their ears, the breeze fluttering papers held down by a rock on his desk.
"You're using a rock to hold down your pages?"
"It was handy."
"Does that mean you've overcome the problems you were having with the book?"
"Yes. It's moving along." Sam didn't say anything else and Anna decided to sit quietly for a few minutes to get her courage up.
"Sam, about last time--"
"Anna, I want to say something--"
"Well so do I!"
He gave a low laugh. "Okay, you first."
"I wanted to say how flattered I was, how surprised I was...but I don't know how to respond to what you said. It feels like you were talking about someone else, not me. I think maybe you are imagining more to me than is here."
There, she'd said it. Now he'd realize she was right and he'd made a big mistake in telling her those things and they could just be friends.
He was shaking his head. "Anna...you are so wrong. I know exactly who I was talking about and it was you. But I can see you have some trouble accepting that, so I'm just going to have to prove it to you. For now, will you at least try to believe in me, in my feelings for you?"
"But this kind of thing doesn't happen to me!" Anna blurted out. "To my sister, Holly, sure--all the time. She's the pretty one, the one everyone falls for, but not me. I don't know how to feel about any of this."
"Anna, I know, I get it, love. It will take time. But what I feel isn't about your sister Holly, it's about you. I don't expect anything from you. Just try and believe a little bit, okay? And let me keep seeing you?"
She was mortified to feel tears fill her eyes. Dashing her hand across them, she stood up. "I should probably go."
"Anna...please?"
"If I stay, will you go back to work while I sit here? I think I could do that."
He frowned for a moment, then his face cleared and his eyes softened. "As long as you can be comfortable, I'll go back to my writing."
She leaned against the back of the couch. "Okay, I'll stay."
* * * *
Sam thought it would be shocking if he wrote anything other than complete drivel, with her sitting there so close. Still, he could at least fake writing if that made her comfortable. Once he started, however, the writing began to flow and over an hour passed before he came out of the 'zone' and checked the clock.
"I didn't realize so much time had gone by." He turned in his chair to look at her. "Did you need a drink, or..." He saw a glass of water in her hand.
"I got it myself. You didn't seem to hear me get up or the opening of the fridge. By the way, I love those appliances."
"They do fit in with a beach house like this one don't they." He raked his hands through his hair as he remembered. "Damn, I totally forgot to give you the check." He got up and went to a little table with drawers next to the rocking chair.
He lifted out the check and handed it over to her. "You'll see that it's drawn on my company name, SLC Limited. I figured that would be better than having the bank tellers wonder why Sam Carter would be giving you so much money."
"Thanks for thinking of that, Sam," Anna said as she put the check folded up into her jeans pocket. "What does the L stand for in SLC?"
"Lawrence, Samuel Lawrence Carter. Family names. I think Lawrence came from a great uncle."
"Family...you never have mentioned family."
"Hmm. I guess I haven't. Let's see, I have a mother and father who live in New York state in the Adirondacks. I have three sisters, Beth and Maggie, who live in Philadelphia and Rose who lives near Mom and Dad."
"Are you guys close? Was it a happy family life for you growing up?"
"Yes, we were and still are a pretty happy family. We stay in touch now by phone, Skype, texting, emails and regular get-togethers where everyone flies into the same place for a weekend or more. They all know to leave me alone when I'm off writing. They keep me updated with emails, but that's all. We'll celebrate the book being done with a week somewhere, maybe up at my parents' house in the mountains."
"Sounds nice. How old are you?"
Sam's brow lifted in surprise. "I'm thirty. Why?"
"Just curious. I'm twenty-three, bit of an age gap."
"Not that much. Seven years is nothing. My parents are separated by nine years in age."
Anna got up and took her glass into the kitchen and set it in the sink. "I should go and try to get something done today."
"You are getting something done being here, you know," he said gently.
"Let's don't push our luck today, all right?" She gave a little laugh. "Don't worry, I'm not going to disappear. I've decided you're right. It would be silly not to give this, whatever it is between us, this thing a chance. So yes, I agree that we should continue to see each other."
"Great!" He felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his chest. "How about tomorrow night? Dinner?"
"Sure, you could come to dinner at home with Dad and Cody--"
"I meant, going out to a restaurant, like a date."
"Oh, oh, um, sure. What kind of a date? Dressy or casual?"
"How about casual but nice, does that sound okay?"
"Sure, sure, I can do that."
Sam could see thoughts flickering across her face. Somehow he thought Anna would go shopping for clothes before tomorrow night. He smiled inside but kept his face grave.
"Okay, so, well, bye," Anna said and left in a hurry.
Sam nodded to himself. That went better than expected. It wasn't that Anna had lo
w self-esteem. She needed confidence in herself as an attractive woman. And he thought he just might be able to show her that.
* * * *
Anna nudged over the speed limit as she drove home. What on earth was she going to wear? The outfit she wore to the fair was one Holly had given her a few years ago. She had plenty of jeans and t-shirts, sweaters and cotton shirts, but casual nice?
As she walked into the Grainger house, she found a note from her father saying he and Cody were heading over to her loft to work on finishing the kitchen. That was good. She had the house to herself which meant she could ransack Holly's closet. Holly kept a variety of clothes in her old bedroom. Surely there would be something she could borrow out of her treasure trove.
After an hour of searching through Holly's closet and every drawer in the room, she felt a bit frantic. She couldn't tell what would be appropriate. 'Dinner at a restaurant' –did that mean the local diner where her jeans would be perfectly fine? Somehow she didn't think so. Finally she decided to call her sister.
"Holly? Listen I need to talk to you about clothes."
"Anna? Is that you? Are you okay? You sound--upset."
"I am upset! I don't know what to wear."
"What to wear? Where are you going?"
"On a date to a restaurant for dinner."
"On a...okay, just when did this happen?"
"Recently. It's Sam Carter, you know, the new guy in town."
"Oh, the one who bought Wally's place? Is he nice? Good looking? Tell me everything."
"Holly," Anna gritted her teeth. "Right now what's important is what to wear. We're going out tomorrow night and he said it was 'casual nice' and that means nothing to me."
"Hmm. This calls for drastic measures. Anna, tomorrow morning you and I are going shopping."
"What? I thought I could borrow something out of your closet."
"No, all that stuff is old. You need something new. Don't worry about the cost, I'll pay for everything and--"
"You don't have to pay. I have eight thousand dollars."
Dead silence came over the phone.
"You there...Holly?"
"How did you get that kind of money?"